Patience

Patience is something I am still learning, but definitely need a lot of in my life. I started this post in September, but never got around to finishing. It must have been a day that I was frustrated or short on patience. Some days my patience are much better than other days!! As much as I try not to..... because I am truly grateful for all I have and especially grateful for how well Mason is doing.... having little patience some days still gets the best of me. I share these thoughts with you because I know this is something all parents, and even more so, parents of special needs kiddos (certainly including me), need more and more of each day!

Patience is a virtue.

It takes patience to wait for a seed to sprout or a tomato to ripen.

It takes more patience to ask a 5-year-old to tie her shoes than to tie them for her.

Sometimes the phrase "long suffering" is used as a synonym for patience.

Patience is the ability and willingness to endure waiting without complaining or being upset when faced with a difficult or challenging situation.

Patience requires tolerance, compassion, faith, hope, and love .

Patience is a good natured tolerance of a delay or incompetence.

Patience is talking softly, yet sternly, to reprimand a child who has just colored all over your wall with permanent markers.

Patience is learned and acquired slowly over time.

Or in Mason's journey patience sometimes means enduring......................

the wait for answers from all the hospitals who reviewed mason's unusual and complicated case, being in another a state away from your family, hitting yet another speed bump, delaying moving forward for just a while, hitting your lifetime max and losing your medical insurance, answering daily phone calls (or ignoring them some days) from those trying to collect for Mason's uncovered bills, filling out and refilling out SSI and Medicaid applications only to be denied, the hardships it can be to the siblings of special needs kiddos, and overall- life throwing at you what you didn't expect being a mother would include and just taking it in stride looking for the sunshine each day.

In the end of such trials patience will always pay off and everything will work out. Some sooner and some later, but we are never alone and our patience will help us find a better day always. I hope and pray for more patience in my life and also that my thoughts may help you to do the same.

We did finally get insurance for Mason. (Which was the speed bump I think triggered me to start this post initially.) It just took lots of research and patience to find him some coverage that was best for his situation. Any one out there having the same problem, look into the Health Care Reform that changed a lot of insurance guidelines in September 2010 and talk to your employer or insurance broker as well as your hospital's social workers. I am grateful we were able to get Mason covered again after a few stressful months of no insurance!

"Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best–better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His." --Neal A Maxwell

"We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God's purposes and pattern to unfold in our lives, on His timetable." --Robert C Oaks

".....Heaven's kindness will never depart from you, regardless of what happens......Bad days come to an end, faith always triumphs, and heavenly promises are always kept."

--Jeffrey R Holland

(This quote I've used many times because it is one of my favorites!!!)